Man and Boy

I grew up in New London, Connecticut; a town on the Thames River that was once burned by the British, homeport to a fleet of square rigged whalers and famed for its submarine base and barrooms full of sailors. I recall the main streets still glistening with trolley-car tracks, though the trolleys themselves departed long before my arrival.

At the top of a hill, in a house that will forever define home, I fell to sleep at night gazing at the steeple light of the Coast Guard Academy Chapel that shined between the oak trees outside my bedroom window. By daylight I climbed out on the branches of those same oaks as in my mind, I struggled out onto the yardarms of a man-of-war to furl a sail.

In winter, rabbits tempted the Davy Crockett in me to track them through the new snow while steep hills enticed us all to sled down. At dusk in summer, there was a yelling gang in the street playing hide-and-go-seek.

While we kids played, our mothers washed, cleaned and cooked and our fathers went to work. Mr. Nichols from across the street, who had funny bumps on his head, also had a hand-painted-with-a-brush silver Ford van in which he disappeared every day to sand and refinish hardwood floors. Mr. Rasmussen, a wiry, white haired man who drove a faded-blue “Henry J,” taught baton-twirling to young girls—rumored to be State and National twirling champions—in his front yard. Mr. Johnson, whose nine-year-old son Douglas had hair whiter than snow and a nose that was always running, worked at New London Mills making linoleum. Red-haired Mr. Kelly, father of Jack, Linda and the twins Gary and Larry, smoked Chesterfields and worked at the Post Office.

Dad worked as a machinist, first at Pratt-Whitney up in East Hartford then at Electric Boat in Groton. He always referred to himself as an old “swamp-Yankee,” though he never did tell me just what a swamp-Yankee was. Being what some call a stepfather, his last name was different from mine, but to me, there was never anything “step” about him. Others may have called him Henry or Hank; but to me he was Dad, the man who took the time and expended the effort to raise me. What I hold dear, what I cherish and stand for, I learned from him.

To Dad, holidays were very special. While the Fourth of July was always spent picnicking at the beach or camp, Thanksgiving and Christmas were held most sacred. On those days Dad would entertain family at our home, for on those two days of all days, at home was where one must be.

Between holidays and fishing trips to the city pier, there were many special times between Dad and me, but of them all; one stands out clearer and more pointed than the rest.

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror, his green work pants unbelted, his T-shirt drooping loosely on his torso. As I, a skinny, eleven-year-old watch from the doorway, Dad washes his face, removes his shaving-brush from the medicine cabinet, wets it and begins working up lather in the soap dish.

“How come you use that?” I ask, nodding toward the soap dish.

“Use what? Oh, you mean this?” He lifts the soap from the dish.

“Yeah. How come you don’t use shaving cream?”

He drops the small, slim bar of soap back into the dish.

“Oh heck, shave cream ain’t nothin’ but greasy soap,” he says as he works the lather over his face giving particular attention to the area under his nose. Then turning to me he winks and says, “I got plenty of soap and don’t need no grease.”

I nod. It makes perfect sense.

Today, Saturday, is the best day of the week for any eleven-year-old. However, there will be no idleness for me this Saturday, no sleeping until 10, no afternoon movie show. It is 6:30 AM and I’m ready to go to work. Dad has agreed to clean out an old, unused, store that belongs to his older brother, my Uncle Dick. His pay will consist of what he can salvage and sell down at Cohen’s junkyard. My pay will be fifty cents per hour.

The very idea of going-to-work thrills and sobers me at the same time. Work is what adults do and I am determined to do my best to fill the part. As Dad pulls the safety razor over his face, I vicariously participate in this adult morning ritual.

By ten o’clock, the day, begun with vigor and enthusiasm, is threatening to last forever. By noon I am hot and sweaty. Three decades worth of dust, dirt and grime has leaped from its disturbed resting-places amid the brick-a-brack and claimed me for its own.
We pause for lunch only long enough to silently devour a couple of bologna sandwiches and guzzle some water from a gallon jug before we are back at it. I begin to believe in hell. I sort, stack, load and unload in a stupor. I lose track of time. Ten hours after arriving at my uncle’s old store, Dad asks if I am ready to call it a day. So deep have I sank into the working world of the damned that I stare back at him and find his words difficult to comprehend.
We deposit one last load of someone’s old forgotten treasures at the junkyard, then bounce out of the gate and turn in the direction of home. I sit leaning against the scratchy felt of the front passenger door, quietly lost in a mist of exhaustion. The old, gray Dodge, looking oddly unbalanced without its left fender, rolls and bumps over broken cobblestones and trolley tracks giving scant notice to these relics from another age. I look over at Dad and am amazed to see him smiling broadly, the whites of his eyes and teeth in sharp contrast to the sweat streaked dirt on his face. How can anyone that dirty and tired find something to smile about?
He pulls sharply to the curb in front of a small market.
“What’s up?” I ask.

“Gotta quench a powerful thirst, I do,” he replies, smacking his lips. My mom hates it when he ends a statement with “I do” like that, but I like it.

I start to open my door.

“Hold on there Butch, let’s settle up first,” Dad says. Why he calls me “Butch” has always been a mystery to me, but I don’t mind.

I turn toward him, momentarily puzzled, but the five one-dollar bills he thrusts in my direction causes a quick smile of awareness to spread across my face.

“Ten hours at fifty cents per. That’s five bucks, right?”

“That’s right,” I say, almost giggling.
We enter the dry coolness of the store where dust motes are dancing in rays of light and the well-worn wooden floor sighs and squeaks as we walk across it. My father steps directly to the squat pop-cooler and withdraws a cold, wet bottle of Pepsi, snaps off the cap and gulps half its contents before walking over and paying for it. I stand and watch.
“Ain’t you gonna get something?”
“Yeah... sure,” I stammer and quickly retrieve a Pepsi from the ice water, open it and walk over to the cashier.
As I approach, Dad turns and walks away leaving me alone at the register and somewhat perplexed. The cashier holds out her liver-spotted hand. I shoot a glance at Dad.
“Go ahead... pay the lady,” he says quietly.
I withdraw one of the crumpled bills from my shirt pocket and hand it to the smiling white-haired woman. She hands me my change. I hoist the pop and try to gulp it down like Dad had done but succeed only in having the cold, highly carbonated beverage rush out my nose. Gasping, I glance around in a minor panic and, relieved to see no one has witnessed my humiliation, take another, smaller sip of the cold pop.
As we walk toward the door, Dad suddenly stops. When I look up at him, he is looking down at me with a serious expression. “Feels good, don’t it?” A small smile begins pulling at the corners of his mouth
Somehow, I know that he is not referring to the cold Pepsi. I ram my change deep into a pocket of my dirty jeans and reply, “Yeah… yeah, it does.”